Growing up in Cincinnati, Rubina Salikuddin was a bookworm, reading almost anything she could get her hands on. Even as a child, she recognized that stories were a powerful source of enjoyment, information, and knowledge.
Now an assistant professor and director of 桃子视频鈥檚 Middle Eastern, Central Asian and North African Studies (MECANA) Program, Salikuddin continues to draw on illustrative stories, many from the distant past, to teach her students and inform her research. She teaches courses on medieval, early modern, and modern history of the Middle East and Central Asia, with a particular focus on medieval and early modern Iran and Central Asia, and is working on a book about medieval notions of the sacred.
On April 9, Salikuddin will present an Endowed Chair Lecture on 鈥淭ranscending the Feminine: The Emotional Communities of Medieval Sufi Saints鈥 at 4 p.m. in Old Library, 224. The talk will explore how gender norms, particularly among Sufi mystical groups, were constructed, and the sometimes contradictory ways that emotional norms and ideas of gender intertwined in medieval Iran and Central Asia.
鈥淚鈥檓 interested in how people lived their lives in the past,鈥 says Salikuddin. That includes how people saw their p